A college student named Mabel Tanaka (voiced by Piper Curda) spends her time trying to prevent a local forest glade from being destroyed to make way for a highway by the mayor of her city of Beaverton, Jerry Generazzo (voiced by Jon Hamm) as it was the place where she developed her love for nature with her late grandmother (voiced by Karen Huie). After protesting and petitioning gets her nowhere, Mabel finds a radical solution after tailing her college professor, Dr. Sam Fairfax (voiced by Kathy Najimy) and learning that she has invented something called the ‘’Hoppers’’ program, which allows a human consciousness to ‘hop’ into the body of a robotic animal which then can be used to assimilate into and understand the surrounding ecosystem. Realizing how this could help her, Mabel hops into a robot beaver and goes searching for another to build a dam in the glade (therefore preventing any construction from continuing), and while she quickly befriends a beaver monarch named George (voiced by Bobby Moynihan), her passionate push to get rid of the humans is taken to the next level by the Animal Council, who decide to ‘’squish’’ Jerry for his actions and take Mabel and George out along with him. Now needing to fix her mistake before Jerry is killed, Mabel will use both her newly adopted animal traits and her passionate human self to resolve this conflict and try to fight for a future where everybody gets to live peacefully.
HOPPERS isn’t anything remarkable and could’ve fleshed out its script more to lead the story to more interesting and nuanced areas but feels refreshing for Pixar and more in line with their past movies thanks to its heartfelt storytelling, pretty solid humor, charming characters, and wonderfully expressive and lively animation.
After the commercial failure of Elio and the surprise sleeper hit of Elemental, Pixar probably didn’t know the best way to return to their former glory, so they made the smart decision to produce a brand new feature that still had a zany hook, a modern sense of energy and tone, and a more down-to-earth narrative akin to a lot of their later releases, but would also try and include that familiar sense of peaceful maturity they were once so applauded for. HOPPERS contains a healthy dose of every Pixar attribute, and while not reaching new heights or providing something that greatly changes how people view the studio, it achieved its goal of offering something that feels reminiscent but not reductive.
With a hyperactive comedic personality that bleeds into the wildly expressive animation and scripting, HOPPERS goes zany with its premise and is commanded with enough passion, charm and energy to keep children invested whilst featuring just enough heart, stability and out-of-pocket dark humor to work for adults. This well-roundedness is due to its director, Daniel Chong, who only worked on a few shorts with Pixar in the past but is mainly known for creating the hit Cartoon Network show, We Bare Bears, which combined a surreal environment and breezy sense of humor with an extremely chill, modern and likeable atmosphere, memorable characters and a peacefully enriching color palette, and Chong improves upon this pretty random plot by bringing a similar kind of energy to it.
The pacing never slows down and results in some good jokes but does still keep your investment, most of the main characters are very likeable and have good designs, the animation is very good at the comedy but can be tranquil and show the beauty of nature nicely as well, and the short running time means it’s a short pleasant watch for the whole family.
With that said, HOPPERS feels very small in scale and despite being submerged in environmentalism, its lack of a clear motive or goal means it doesn’t leave as much of a punch as it could’ve with a bit more ironing out. The screenplay written by Jesse Andrews is good at twisting around a very standard ‘’nature vs humanity’’ setup, but due to the very zippy pacing and simple characters with even simpler motivations, it lacks the subtle poignancy and mature nuance that could’ve naturally come from a story from Pixar all about nature and humanity’s obligation to protect it.
It’s hard to blame it for not having more depth given its clear comedic identity but considering the narrative pieces (written by Chong and Andrews) actually come together pretty smoothly in spite of the rapid speed at which they come about, it’s a shame that it doesn’t offer much more than a blip of entertainment for a short while.
When people heard that the lead was going to be a beaver, audiences rolled their eyes and chortled at the prospect, but after the movie posits that beavers effectively act like ‘’ecosystem engineers’’ for their habitats, the gears start to fall into place, and the decision doesn’t feel off anymore. As characters go, Mabel makes for a pretty good lead, has a good design with strong expressions both as a human and as a beaver, Piper Curda is good as the voice, and while her basic motivation and very predictable pain of losing a grandmother keep her from being great, she’s still a good driving force for the film.
George is also a pretty likeable character voiced very well by Bobby Moynihan, and he and Mabel share a very nice bond, but sadly the rest of the cast don’t leave as much of an impression. The animal high council (voiced by Meryl Streep, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Steve Purcell, Nichole Sakura, and Ego Nwodim) have hilariously weird designs yet are quickly overshadowed by The Insect King (voiced by Dave Franco/Eman Abdul-Razzak), who has great comedic potential as a cutesy yet entitled caterpillar who becomes a power-hungry butterfly, but his writing and plot directive is pretty standard and not that much fun.
Jon Hamm isn’t a total trope as the mayor, but isn’t elevated to be more than a roadblock for the characters to deal with, and Kathy Najimy, Aparna Nancherla and Sam Richardson as the scientists who created the Hoppers project are likeable enough, but don’t get enough screentime to feel like crucial characters, which is also the case for Melissa Villaseñor, Eduardo Franco and Tom Law as other animal companions.
What’s nice about the visual look of Hoppers is that it doesn’t seem interested in being highly realistic but rather showcases something cartoonish, chaotic and not afraid to be weird and unhinged. It dabbles with over-the-top cartoony aspects like very spongy human movements and textures and very exaggerated facial reactions, and whether human or animal, every character has a very good design that will lead to an instantly iconic look even if the role itself isn’t as much.
Since it mainly takes place in nature, it’s fun seeing how the film highlights the peaceful and calming aspects of such a natural setting, while also throwing a wrench into the mix by creating an animal society that proves to be just as hectic and bizarre as that of humans (just with different priorities). The film does ignore a lot of the commentary that could come from this idea, but at the very least, the smooth earthy colors and wonderfully lit environments combined with the very silly and wacky characters with bizarrely constructed models leads to a great aesthetic even if it isn’t totally new for the studio
It’s nice that HOPPERS is doing well on all fronts as Pixar needed their newest original idea to have a smooth win, but if the film were released during a stronger period for the studio, it probably wouldn’t be received as warmly. It’d still be doing good as it’s a well-made movie that has solid characters, animation and humor, but it’s hard to say it’s on the level of Pixar’s best or is even that memorable due to its comedy-driven narrative and very low stakes and scale. Either way, while this hasn’t immediately put Pixar back on top, it’s directing them in the right direction, and if their next original movie has as much passion, commitment and energy as this film does, things might just turn out okay for them.
